October 7, 2004: Headlines: COS - Mexico: Expansion: Corpus Christi Caller Times: Kyle Turk left for Mexico recently to help a Peace Corps pilot program improve technology exchanges between the United States and Mexico

ALICE Kyle Turk, 24, left for Mexico recently to help a Peace Corps pilot program improve technology exchanges between the United States and Mexico.

"I'm at a time in my life where I can really do something and help out people," Turk, a computer engineering graduate from Texas A&M University in College Station, said in a release from the Peace Corps. "I was overwhelmed when I was selected."

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Turk is one of 11 in the businessadvising group, called Mexico Group One, which is the Peace Corps' first foray into Mexico. The team's goal is to upgrade technology communications between the two countries. Turk, a 1998 Alice High School alumnus, is the only member from Texas. Each member of the team specializes in an aspect of the business world, such as financial, business management or technology. Group members will stay with host families who are instructed to speak only Spanish to the group to help them learn the language quickly.

"He knows a little bit of Spanish," said Sarah Turk, Kyle's mother. "But by the end of his twoyear service, he will come back fluent."

The team will train for 12 weeks in Queretaro, two hours from Mexico City, learning the culture, customs and technical skills needed for their twoyear assignments. After finishing their course, trainees will be swornin as volunteers and assigned to the central Mexican communities of Queretaro, Leon and San Luis Potosi.

The new program will allow Americans to share their ideas and skills in science, information technology and small business development with Mexican residents, according to the Peace Corps.

"The opening of the firstever Peace Corps program in Mexico is truly a landmark event," Bryon Battle, Peace Corps director for Mexico, said in the release. "It also marks a creative new initiative within Peace Corps to invite Americans with lengthy professional experience to work at the technical level with (our) Mexican counterparts."

The program was made possible after two years of negotiations between the United States and Mexico. An agreement was signed last year by the Peace Corps and the National Council on Science and Technology of Mexico.

Since 1961, more than 170,000 volunteers have served in the Peace Corps in areas of education, health, HIV/AIDS awareness, information technology, business development, environment and agriculture. The agency has implemented 137 programs worldwide. Currently, there are more than 7,500 volunteers serving 71 countries.

"Peace Corps is seeing more applications coming in, not only from college graduates, but from midcareer professionals who have been laid off or retirees who feel too young to retire," said Jesus Garcia, Peace Corps spokesperson.

Contact Ofelia Garcia Hunter at 8863759 or email huntero@caller.com

When this story was posted in October 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL InterviewPCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before.

Schwarzenegger praises PC at Convention Governor Schwarzenegger praised the Peace Corps at the Republican National Convention: "We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children." Schwarzenegger has previously acknowledged his debt to his father-in-law, Peace Corps Founding Director Sargent Shriver, for teaching him "the joy of public service" and Arnold is encouraging volunteerism by creating California Service Corps and tapping his wife, Maria Shriver, to lead it. Leave your comments and who can come up with the best Current Events Funny?

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Story Source: Corpus Christi Caller Times

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Mexico; Expansion

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